I actually think "curtailment" is not throwing away electricity any more than not running a natural gas power plant 24/7 is. The only difference is the natural

I actually think "curtailment" is not throwing away electricity any more than not running a natural gas power plant 24/7 is. The only difference is the natural gas plant has fuel costs and the solar doesn't. But both are big capital investments, so you could argue you're "throwing away" electricity you could've generated with that natural gas plant by not running it all the time. Anyway, just my little contribution to how we think about curtailment. If you have a good grid connection and optimal storage, then you don't end up needing that much curtailment (say 30%), although some is basically always optimal. See: https://model.energy https://model.energy Oh, also, under-sizing the inverter relative to the solar array DC capacity is not even close to a one-to-one curtailment example. The solar rarely makes its peak power rating, so undersizing the inverter by 25% means almost no curtailment in the real world. Effectively, you're increasing the AC capacity factor and it almost perfectly compensates (until you get very high ratios, but even then the amount actually curtailed is small). This has a bigger impact in places that have more cloudy or overcast weather. If you install more solar panels (which are a much smaller part of the total cost of the project than they used to be), you can compensate for not having as much sun without much increase in cost.